MARK  TWAIN 

An  Appreciation  of 
His  Pioneer  Writings 

on 

Fasting  and  Health 


By 

GEORGE  WHARTON  JAMES 

A  uthor  of  "  California,  Romantic  and  Beautiful, " 
"Arizona,  the  Wonderland,"  "Living  the  Radiant 
Life,"  "Quit  Your  Worrying,"  " In  and  Around 
the  Grand  Canyon,"  " Indian  Blankets  and  Their 
Makers,"  etc. 


REPRINTED  FROM   PHYSICAL  CULTURE   FOR  MAY   NINETEEN-NINETEEN 


T 


t\ 


Pioneer  on  Fasting  and  Health 

By  George  Wharton  James 


EVERY- 
one  fa 
miliar 
with  the  life- 
habits  of 
Mark  Twain 
knows  how  he 
reveled  in 
smoking, 
contending 
that  he  was 
moderate  in 
the  use  of 
cigars  in  that 
he  never 
smoked  more 
than  one  at 
a  time,  and 
that  he  was 
not  averse 
to  his  "tot" 
of  strong 
waters  every 
day.  It  was 
his  custom 
to  make  fun 
of  all  hygienic 
rules  and  pre 
cautions,  and 
jokes  galore 
are  scattered 
throughout 
hislwoks  con 
cerning  the 
folly  of  self- 
denial  of  the 
appetite.  Yet 
in  his  prac 
tice,  his  life, 
Mark  Twain 
was  far  wiser 
than  his  jests 
seemed  to 
indicate.  For 
he  was  some- 


ILLUSTRATED  BY  HITHERTO  UNPUBLISHED  COPYRIGHT 
PHOTOGRAPHS     BY     A.    F.     BRADLEY.      NEW      YORK 


( 'opyrtght  by 


He  began  life  as  Samuel  L.  Clemens 
America's  foremost  humorist, 


A.F.  Bradley.  N.  Y. 
and  ended  it  as  Mark  Twain.     He  was 


thing  more  than  a  mere — though  great — humorist.  He 
was  also  a  great  philosopher.  Nothing  that  he  ever 
wrote  more  perfectly  illustrated  this  than  one  of  his 
earliest  literary  efforts.  This  early-day  story  made  so 
deep  and  profound  an  impression  upon  my  mind  that 
I  can  recall  its  every  detail,  though  it  is  fully  thirty  years 
since  I  first  read  it.  It  is  published  in  the  collected 
(Harper  &  Brothers)  edition  of  his  works  as  "My  1  Jehut  as 
a  Literary  Person."  He  tells  of  having  written  an 
article  alxmt  the  burning  of  the  clipj>er  ship  Hornet 
on  the  line,  May  3,  186«.  Mark  Twain  was  in  Honolulu 
when  the  fifteen  >tarved  and  ghostly  survivors  arrived 


there  after 
spending 
forty-three 
days  in  an 
open  boat 
with  only  ten 
days'  rations 
of  food. 

Mark  was 
sick  in  bed 
when  these 
men  arrived, 
but  Anson 
Burlingame, 
who  was  on 
his  way  to 
China  to 
negotiate  the 
treaty  that 
afterwards 
bore  his 
name,  hap 
pened  to  be 
there  and  had 
Mark  taken 
down  to  the 
hospital  on  a 
stretcher  to 
meet  the 
shipwrecked 
men.  As  no 
one  else  of  the 
new spa  per 
correspond 
ents  seemed 
to  see  what  a 
scoop  the 
story  was. 
Mark  made  a 
great  hit 
with  it,  as 
well  as  justi 
fied  himself 
in  later  put 
ting  in  a  sj>e- 


philosopher  and  man  of  letters. 

cial  bill  for  it  at  a  hundred  dollars  a  column  (three  solid 
columns). 

The  point  I  wish  to  make  to  my  readers  is  this:  Mark 
Twain  then  learned  that,  although  that  shipwrecked 
crew  arrived  in  Honolulu  mere  skinny  skeletons,  "with 
clothes  hung  limp  about  thorn,  fitting  them  no  lx?tter 
than  a  flag  fits  the  flagstaff  in  a  calm,"  they  »x>n 
recovered,  and  gathered  strength  rapidly,  and  within  a 
fortnight  were  nearly  as  good  as  new  and  took  ship  to 
San  Francisco.  Thin  clearly  denoiutratfd  that  their  long 
period  of  f anting  had  done  them  no  harm.  The  Hornet 
left  New  York  in  January  of  I860.  It  was  a  first-class 


•  AOE      T  w  o 


ship,  a  fast  sailer,   and  provisioned  with  an 
abundance  of  canned  meats  and  fruits  to  help 
out  the  usual  ship  fare.     Everything  went  well 
until  May  3rd,  when  fire  broke  out  and  the 
captain  decided   to   get  away   in   the   ship's 
boats.     In  the  hurry  of  launching  them  two 
were  injured.     Four  sick  sailors  were  brought 
up  on  deck,  one  of  them  a  "Portyghee"  who 
had  been  "soldiering"  throughout  the  whole 
four    months'    voyage,    nursing    an    abscess. 
The    captain,    with    two    passengers,    and 
eleven    men    were    in    the    long    boat.     The 
rations  were  half  a  biscuit  for  breakfast;  one 
biscuit   and   some   canned   meat   for  dinner; 
half  a  biscuit  for  tea;  a  few  swallows  of  water 
for  each  meal. 

Where  should  they  go?  What  port  aim  for? 
The  nearest  islands  were  about  a  thousand 
miles  away.  The  first  night  it  rained 
hard,  and  while  all  got  thoroughly 


Copyright  by  A.  F.  Bradley,  New  York 


Copyright  by  A.  F.  Bradley.  New  York 

drenched  they  filled  their  water  butt  and 
were  thankful.  They  were  so  crowded  that 
none  of  them  could  stretch  out  and  take  a  good  sleep. 
For  five  weeks  they  endured  this,  with  all  the 
other  hardships — baking  hot  in  the  day  time, 
occasionally  wet  through  with  rains,  a  heavy  and 
dangerous  sea  at  times,  and  seeing  their  tiny  stock 
of  provisions  gradually  growing  less  and  less.  While 
they  still  had  a  month's  wandering  of  the  seas 
ahead  of  them  the  captain  recorded  in  his  log 
(May  17)  that  they  had  only  half  a  bushel  of  bread 
crumbs  left. 

^Now  noteJ       According  to  one  of  the 
diaries  kept  the  men  seemed  pretty  well 
and  the  feeblest  of  the  sick  ones  formerly 
unable  to  stand  his  watch  on  board  ship 
was  wonderfully  recovered.     This  was 
the  "Portyghee"  that  "raised  the 
family  of  abscesses." 

They  had  the   usual   excite 
ment  and  elevation  of  hope  at 
seeing  a  sail  on  the  horizon,  and 
then  the  corresponding  depres 
sion  as  the  vessel  disappeared.     They  caught 
a  few  boobies,  birds  that  consist  mainly 
of  feathers  and  managed  to  exist  on 
tiny  rations  doled  out  from  the  canned 
goods    that    still    remained.     Then    the 
boats  were  compelled  to  separate,  each 
going  "on  its  own,"  and  doing  the  best 
for  itself.     Its  food  became  scarcer; 
despair     made     them     silent, 
thus    adding    to    other    im 
aginable    and    unimaginablf 


PAGE    THREE 


horrors,  the    muteness    and    brooding   of  desperation. 

And  here  conies  the  passage  of  Murk's  philosophy  and 
practice  that  so  forcefully  struck  me  when  I  first  read  it 
many  years  ago. 

"Considering  the  situation  and  circumstances,  the 
record  for  the  next  day.  May  29,  is  one  which  has  a 
surprise  in  it  for  those  dull  people  who  think  that  noth 
ing  hut  medicines  and  doctors  can  cure  the  sick.  A  little 
starvation,  can  really  do  more  for  the  average  sick  man 
than  can  the  best  medicines  and  the  best  doctors.  I 
do  not  mean  a  restricted  diet;  I  mean" — and  the  italics 
are  Mark's  own — "total  abstention  from  food  for  one  or 
tiro  (/(ji/.v.  I  s|>eak 
from  experience; 
starvation  has 
Keen  my  cold  and 
fever  doctor  for 
fifteen  years,  and 
has  accomplished 
a  cure  in  all  in 
stances.  The  third 
mate  told  me  in 
Honolulu  that  the 
'Portygbee'  had 
lain  in  his  ham 
mock  for  months, 
raising  his  family 
of  abscesses  and 
feeding  like  a  can 
nibal.  We  have 
seen  that  in 
spite  of  dread 
ful  weather,  de 
privation  of  sleep, 
scorching,  drench 
ing,  and  all  man 
ner  of  miseries, 
thirteen  days  of 
starvation  'won 
derfully  recovered' 
him.  There  were 
four  sailors  down 
sick  when  the  ship 
was  burned.  Twen 
ty  -  five  days  of 
pitiless  starvation 
have  followed,  and 
now  we  have  this 
curious  record:  'All 
the  men  arc  lietirty 
and  stront/ ;ei  en  the 
ones  that  were  doirn 
sick  are  well,exfe]it 
poor  Peter.'  When 
I  wrote  an  article 
some  months  ago 

urging  temporary  abstention  from  food  as  a  remedy  for 
an  inactive  apj>etite  and  for  disease,  I  was  accused  of 
jesting,  but  I  was  in  earnest.  'HY  arc  nil  wonderfully 
well  and  strong,  comparatively  speaking!'  On  this  day  the 
starvation  regimen  drew  its  Ixjlt  a  couple  of  buckle- 
holes  tighter:  the  bread  ration  was  reduced  from  the 
usual  piece  of  cracker  the  size  of  a  silver  dollar  to  the 
half  of  that  and  one  meal  was  abolished  from  the  daili/  three. 
This  will  weaken  the  men  physically,  but  if  there  are 
any  diseases  of  an  ordinary  sort  left  in  them  they  will 
disappear."* 

•Quoted  by  permlMlnn  of  Harper  and  Brothers  and  the  Estate  of  Samuel  I.  Clemens 


Oonyrwht 


Note  well  this  last  sentence,  and  rememl>er  it  was 
written  b\  ahumorist.onewhowas — at  lc;ist  at  that  time 
not  supposed  to  waste  much  of  his  time  on  serious  thought. 
It  was  not  the  product  of  a  physician's  or  nurse's  ex 
perience,  but  the  observation  of  a  keen-brained  layman. 
He  saw  that  fasting  would  drive  out  ordinary  disease. 
And  that  observation  of  his  led  me  to  my  own  studies  of 
fasting,  so  that  when,  years  and  years  later,  the  idea 
was  o|>enly  advocated,  I  knew  that  of  which  I  spoke 
when  I  heartily  endorsed  and  fought  for  it,  in  spite  of 
opposition  from  those  whose  medical  and  practical 
knowledge  was,  or  should  have  been,  far  more  extensive 

than  mine. 

To  return  now 
to  the  story  of 
the  shipwreck.  On 
May  30  the  cap 
tain  had  one  can 
of  oysters;  three 
pounds  of  raisins; 
one  can  of  soup; 
one-third  of  a  ham ; 
three  /tints  of  bis 
cuit-crumbs.  And 
there  were  fifteen 
starved  men  to  live 
on  it  while  they 
crawled  what  they 
thought  was  six 
hundred  and  fifty 
miles,  but  in  real 
ity  was  twenty- 
two  hundred. 

June  4  the  cap 
tain  reported  the 
bread  and  raisins 
all  gone  and  the 
day  following 
they  had  nothing 
left  but  a  little 
piece  of  ham  and 
a  gill  of  water,  all 
around. 

June  11  with 
all  their  food  gone 
one  of  the  pas 
sengers  wrote  in 
his  diary  that  it 
was  his  firm  trust 
and  belief  that 
they  were  going 
to  IK*  saved. 

And  so  indeed 
they  were.  June 
15  they  sighted 
land.  Two  noble 

Kanakas  swam  out  and  took  the  boat  ashore  and 
two  white  men  kindly  received  them.  They  were 
taken  to  the  hospital.  There  Mark  saw  them,  and  as  he 
says;  "It  is  an  ama/.ing  adventure.  There  is  nothing 
of  its  sort  in  history  that  surpasses  it  in  impossibilities 
made  possible.  In  one  extraordinary  detail — the  survival 
of  ereri/  person  in  the  boat — it  probably  stands  alone  in 

the  history  of  adventures  of  its  kind • 

"Within  ten  days  after  the  landing  all  the  men  but 
one  were  up  and  creeping  about.  Properly,  they  ougM 
to  have  killed  themselves  with 


I'AC.  K        K  O  T  K 


the  'food'  of  the  last  few  days — some 
of  them,  at  any  rate — men  who  had 
freighted  their  stomachs  with  strips  of 
leather  from  old  boots  and  with  chips 
from  the  butter  cask;  a  freightage  which 
they  did  not  get  rid  of  by  digestion,  but 
by  other  means.  The  captain  and  the 
two  passengers  did  not  eat  strips  and 
chips,  as  the  sailors  did,  but  scraped  the 
boot-leather  and  the  wood,  and  made  a 
pulp  of  the  scrapings  by  moistening  them 
with  water.  The  third  mate  told  me 
that  the  boots  were  old  and  full  of  holes: 
then  added  thoughtfully,  'but  the  holes 
digested  the  best!'" 

I  am  glad  to  thus  bring  to  the  attention 
of  the  readers  of  PHYSICAL  CULTURE 
this  story  and  especially  Mark  Twain's 
deductions  upon  fasting  made  so  long  ago. 
He  persisted  in  the  fasting  habit  through 
out  his  life,  and  while  no  one  will  attempt 
to  defend,  from  the  hygienic  standpoint — 
Mark's  smoking  and  drinking  habits, 
there  can  be  little  question  but  that  he 
prolonged  his  life  by  his  occasional  fasts. 

That  he  was  seriously  interested  in 
the  subject  is  clearly  evidenced  from  his 
"Appetite  Cure,"  a  roaring  burlesque 
on  the  Bohemian  method  of  treating 
those  whose  pampered  appetites  began 
to  loathe  the  luxuries  they  had  fattened 
on. 

In  his  "Appetite  Cure"  Mark  Twain 
presents  his  ideas  on  fasting  though  in  a 
most  excruciatingly  funny  and  exagger 
ated  fashion  that,  to  my  mind,  is  one  of 
the  striking  features  of  his  humor.  He 
tells  of  the  place  in  Bohemia,  a  short 
day's  journey  from  Vienna,  where  one 
goes  to  have  his  failing  appetite  treated. 
After  a  fooling  introduction  you  are  told 
that  the  Hochberghaus  stands  solitary 
on  the  top  of  a  densely  wooded  mountain 
and  that  it  is  called  the  Appetite  Anstallt. 
Professor  Haimberger  met  Twain  on  his 
arrival  and  found  out  that  though  he  had 
had  all  the  most  tempting  things  upon  his 
table  he  could  eat  next  to  nothing. 

The  doctor  handed  him  a  menu  and 
asked  him  to  pick  out  from  it  what  he 
would  like  to  eat.  Of  course  it  was  made 
up  of  impossibilities:  "At  the  top  stood 
tough,  underdone,  overdue  tripe,  gar 
nished  with  garlic;  half-way  down  the 
bill  stood  young  cat;  old  cat;  scrambled 
cat;  at  the  bottom  stood  sailor-boots, 
softened  with  tallow — served  raw.  The 
wide  intervals  of  the  bill  were  packed 
with  dishes  calculated  to  insult  a  canni 
bal." 

He  remonstrated  with  the  doctor  for 
joking  with  him  over  so  serious  a  matter. 
The  doctor  said  he  never  was  so  serious 
in  his  life.  The  "appetite-cure"  was  his 
main  dependence  for  his  living.  He  had 
to  cure  people  or  lose  his  business.  This 
led  Mark  to  apologize  for  taking  the 
food  named  on  the  menu  from  the  mouths 
of  the  doctor's  children.  But  the  doctor 


denied  that  his  children  ate  such  trash. 
It  was  only  his  patients  that  he  provided 
these  things  for. 

But  Mark  was  not  hungry.  He  de 
clined  even  the  most  tasty  of  the  suggested 
items,  though  he  was  informed  that  the 
rule  of  the  house  was:  "If  you  choose 
now,  the  order  will  be  filled  at  once;  but 
if  you  wait,  you  will  have  to  await  my 
pleasure.  You  cannot  get  a  dish  from 
that  entire  bill  until  I  consent." 

Mark  refused  again,  and  airily  told  the 
doctor  to  send  the  cook  to  bed  as  he  was 
sure  there  was  going  to  be  no  hurry,  and 
then  asked  to  be  shown  to  his  room. 

Once  there  the  doctor  gave  him  full 
freedom  to  smoke  and  read  all  he  liked 
and  drink  all  the  water  he  could  and 
warned  him  that  as  his  case  was  very 
stubborn  he  had  better  refrain  from  eating 
any  of  the  first  fourteen  dishes  on  the 
menu. 

"Restrain  myself,  is  it?"  Mark  cried: 
"Give  yourself  no  uneasiness.  You  are 
going  to  save  money  by  me.  The  idea 
of  coaxing  a  sick  man's  appetite  back  with 
this  buzzard-fare  is  clear  insanity." 

Without  food  he  retired  to  bed  and 
slept — my — how  he  slept!  For  fifteen 
hours  he  never  awoke,  but  when  he  did 
it  was  with  visions  of  Vienna  coffee,  bread, 
etc.,  etc.  Yet  when  he  rang  the  bell  he 
was  referred  to  the  "Cure's"  bill  of  fare. 
What,  that  loathsome  stuff!  He  would 
none  of  it!  After  his  bath  he  started 
for  a  walk,  only  to  find,  to  his  amazement, 
the  door  was  locked.  There  was  no 
leaving  the  room.  At  two  o'clock  he  had 
been  twenty-six  hours  without  food  and 
he  was  not  only  hungry,  but  "strong 
adjective"  hungry.  He  read  and  smoked 
and  drank  water,  and  then  smoked  and 
read  and  drank  water,  and  then  to  vary 
it,  drank  water,  read  and  smoked.  At 
first  the  thought  of  the  infernalnesses  of 
the  Cure's  menu  nauseated  him,  but  after 
forty-five  hours  of  fasting  he  ordered  the 
second  item  on  the  list — "A  sort  of 
dumpling  containing  a  compost  made  of 
cavair  and  tar,"  but  it  was  refused  him. 
For  the  next  fifteen  hours  he  tried  to  get 
other  items,  but  always  met  with  a 
refusal,  until  at  last  he  conquered  all  his 
prejudices  •  and  half  famished  ordered 
item  No.  15  "Soft-boiled  spring  chicken — 
in  the  egg;  six  dozen,  hot  and  fragrant!" 

In  fifteen  minutes  the  dinner  was  there, 
with  the  doctor,  who  congratulated  the 
patient  upon  his  recovery,  but,  when  he 
asked  Mark  a  question  he  impatiently 
waved  him  away:  "Don't  interrupt  me, 
don't — I  can't  spare  my  mouth,  I  really 
can't." 

Then  the  doctor  stopped  him.  He 
could  now  be  trusted  with  a  beefsteak 
and  potatoes,  Vienna  bread  and  coffee, 
which,  of  course,  he  ate  with  a  relish, 
dripping  "tears  of  gratitude  into  the 


PAGE      F  I  V  E 


gravy  all  the  time — gratitude  to  the 
doctor  for  putting  a  little  plain  1*0111111011- 
•.i-ii-r  into  me  when  I  had  been  empty 
of  it  so  inuny.  many  years." 

The  second  part  of  the  story  is  devoted 
to  a  rehash  of  the  shipwreck  yarn  I  have 
already  referred  to,  making  Dr.  Maim 
Ix-rgcr  one  of  the  party,  and  having  him 
learn  the  great  lesson  of  the  benefit  of 
fasting.  He  thus  again  enforces  it,  and 
the  reasons  for  it,  upon  the  minds  of  his 
readers  and  has  Haiinlx'rger  commend 
the  system  and  explain  that  he  got  his 
idea  of  the  "Appetite  Cure"  from  that 
shipwreck  exjx-rience.  Here  is  his  scheme : 
Don't  eat  till  you  are  hungry.  If  the  food 
fails  to  taste  good,  fails  to  satisfy  you, 
rejoice  you,  comfort  you,  don't  eat  again 
until  you  are  very  hungry.  Then  it  will 
rejoice  you — and  do  you  good,  too." 

He  then  asserts  that  all  of  the  German 
and  Austrian  "cures"  are  "his"  system 
disguised,  for  instance:  "My  system 
disguised  —  covert  starvation.  Grape- 
cure,  bath-cure,  mud-cure — it  is  all  the 
same.  The  gra[>e  and  the  bath  and  the 
mud  make  a  show  and  do  a  trifle  of  the 
work — the  real  work  is  done  by  the  sur 
reptitious  starvation."  Then  follows  a 
statement  of  a  day's  treatment,  hour  by 
hour.  "Six  weeks  of  this  regimen — think 
of  it.  It  starves  a  man  out  and  puts 
him  in  splendid  candition.  It  would 
have  the  same  effect  in  London,  New 
York,  Jericho — anywhere." 

And  he  winds  up  his  most  serious  and 
sane,  wise  and  wholesome,  needed  and 
practical  advice,  wrapped  up,  however, 
under  the  most  boisterous  kind  of  fooling 
with  the  following  truism  as  every 
Physical  Culturist  knows: 

"Put  yourself  on  a  single  meal  a  day, 
now — dinner— for  a  few  days,  till  you 
secure  a  g<xxl,  sound,  regular,  trust 
worthy  ap[x'tite.  then  take  to  your  one  ami 
a  half  permanently,  and  don't  listen  to 
the  family  any  more.  When  you  have 
any  ordinary  ailment,  particularly  of 
a  feverish  sort,  eat  nothing  at  all  during 
twenty-four  hours.  That  will  cure  it. 
It  will  cure  the  stubbornest  cold  in  the 
head,  too.  No  cold  in  the  head  can 
survive  twenty-four  hours'  unmodified 
starvation." 

And  now  it  becomes  my  pleasure  to 
tell  how  the  accompanying  photographs 
of  Mark  Twain — never  before  seen  by 
the  public — were  obtained.  In  the  early 
days  of  Mark  Twain's  life,  as  is  well 
known,  he  lived  in  San  Francisco.  Among 
his  intimates  there  were  Bret 
Harte,  Joaquin  Miller,  Noah  Brooks, 
Charles  Warren  Stoddard.  Prentice  Mul- 
ford,  and  a  few  others  of  a  rare  coterie 
who  made  California  Literature  famous 
throughout  the  world.  The  Queen  of 
this  little  circle  was  Inn  Donna  Coolhrith, 


•Ouotcd  by  i--rini-h'<,ii  of  Harper  aoii  Brothera  and  the 
Eatato  of  Saniu.-l  L.  demcna. 


a  |»M-t  of  no  mean  order.  When  the 
disastrous  earthquake  and  following 
fire,  of  !!)()<>,  struck  San  Francisco,  Miss 
Coolbrith  was  one  of  the  many  sufferers, 
who  was  made  destitute  and  homeless. 
Instantly  her  friends  came  to  the  rescue. 

Among  other  methods  followed  for 
raising  the  money  was  that  of  writing 
to  authors  to  contribute  an  autographed 
copy  of  one  of  their  l>ook.s  or  a  photo 
graph,  which  could  then  be  sold.  Mark 
Twain  was  one  of  the  earliest  to  respond, 
and  sent  three  fine  autographed  photo 
graphs,  which  I  speedily  sold  for  ten 
dollars  each.  Soon  afterwards,  l>eing 
in  New  York,  in  the  Fifth  Avenue  Studio 
of  Win.  A.  F.  Bradley,  one  of  the  most 
successful  studio  photographers  in  the 
world,  it  occurred  to  me  that  if  I  could 
get  Mark  Twain  to  pose,  and  Mr.  Bradley 
would  make  me  some  photographs  at  a 
wholesale  price,  and  Mark  would  then 
autograph  them,  I  could  sell  quite  a 
number,  to  the  happy  increase  of  our 
"Ina  Coolbrith  Home  Fund."  Mr.  Brad 
ley  agreed  and  said  he  would  help  make 
the  posing  as  easy  as  possible  by  building 
a  revolving  platform,  to  save  the  usual 
troubles  and  annoyances  of  constantly 
moving  the  sitter  to  produce  the  proper 
effects  of  light  and  shade. 

The  main  difficulty  in  the  way  was  to 
get  Mark  Twain  to  pose.  Accordingly 
I  wrote  to  his  secretary.  Miss  Lyon, 
and  received  a  very  courteous  note  say 
ing  that  he  was  overwhelmingly  busy 
upon  some  work  he  had  pledged  himself 
to  accomplish  in  a  given  time,  and  had 
given  positive  orders  that  no  one,  under 
any  circumstances,  was  to  he  given  an 
interview  or  disturb  his  privacy.  This 
seemed  to  be  final,  but  the  more  I  thought 
about  it  the  more  desperate  the  case 
appeared.  I  should  lie  in  New  York  for 
a  short  time  only,  and  I  could  not  hope 
to  succeed  by  a  letter.  I  must  see  him 
personally.  Accordingly  I  took  the  bull 
by  the  horns,  and  one  morning  ap])eared 
at  his  Fifth  Avenue  residence,  Miss  Lyon 
met  me  with  a  reproving  as  well  as 
reproachful  l<x>k  nixm  her  face: 

"I  dare  not  even  tell  Mr.  Clemens  you 
are  here.  It  is  contrary  to  his  express  and 
positive  orders." 

"Never  mind,"  said  I,  "I'll  tell  him 
myself.  Where  is  he?" 

I  felt  pretty  well  assured  that  he  was 
upstairs,  in  bed,  writing  as  was  his  wont. 
For  he  had  the  habit  of  several  literary 
men  I  know,  who  always  preferred  to  do 
their  creative  work  with  as  few  clothes 
on  as  )>ossible.  I  forget  whether  Miss 
Lyons  or  I  first  called  up  the  stuirs  to  let 
him  know  I  was  there,  but  I  do  know  that 
in  a  few  moments  a  stream  of  tulk  that 
would  not  look  well  in  a  Sunday  School 
book  came  down  stairs.  At  first  he  re 
fused  ]M>int  blank  to  come  down,  but  I 


threatened  to  come  up  and  "beard  the 
lion  in  his  den."  The  dire  vengeance 
be  vowed  he  would  wreak  upon  me  if 
1  did  this  held  me  back,  but  I  vowed  I 
would  camp  at  the  foot  of  the  stairs 
until  he  came  down.  I  said  in  effect, 
"You  profess  the  greatest  friendship  for 
Miss  Coolbrith  and  say  you  would  do 
anything  on  earth  for  her.  Now  let 
us  see  how  much  this  means."  Seeing 
that  I  was  persistent,  he  finally  consented 
to  dress  and  come  down  stairs.  When 
he  did  so,  though  he  was  undeniably 
•iiffled,  he  was  the  courteous  gentleman, 
and  expressed  himself  as  desirous  of  doing 
anything  he  could,  in  reason,  to  aid  in 
what  we  were  attempting  to  accomplish. 
But,  when  I  suggested  that  he  go  to  Mr. 
Bradley 's  studio  and  pose,  it  seemed 
too  much.  "I'll  never  do  it."  he  ex 
claimed.  "I've  vowed  I'd  never  be 
photographed  again.  You  know  those 
photographs  I  sent  to  you?  Shall  I  tell 
you  how  they  got  those.  Rogers  came 
to  me  one  day  and  said  a  man  wanted  to 
make  some  snapshots  of  me  at  a  picnic. 
I  told  him  to  go  ahead,  for,  of  course, 
I  didn't  care  what  he  did  when  I  was 
unconscious  of  it.  But  then  he  came  and 
seduced  me  into  a  temporary  gallery 
he'd  rigged  up  and  photographed  the 
immortal  soul  out  of  me  and  I  swore  I'd 
never  go  into  a  photographer's  gallery 
again." 

"But,"  said  I,  "if  he  took  your  immor 
tal  soul,  you're  safe  for  the  future,  and 
your  soul  doesn't  count,  anyway." 

Then  I  pleaded  my  cause  afresh,  and, 
to  my  great  joy,  though  I  cannot  flatter 
myself  it  was  my  persuasive  powers  that 
won  the  victory — it  was  merely  to  get 
rid  of  me — he  consented  to  go.  Yet  the 
promise  was  no  subterfuge.  I  had  to 
leave  New  York  for  the  West,  so  could 
not  go  in  person  with  a  carriage  or  taxi 
for  him,  but  in  due  time,  when  Mr.  Bradley 
was  ready,  he  appeared,  sat  on  the  chair 
on  the  revolving  stand,  and  the  pictures 
herewith  were  made.  Mr.  Bradley  re 
calls  well  his  white  flannel  suit,  his  pecu 
liar  drawl,  his  pleasant  conversation, 
and  the  real  patience  with  which  he  sat 
until  some  seventeen  negatives  in  all  were 
made. 

Of  the  negatives  thus  obtained  he 
wrote  me  that  he  regarded  four  as  the 
finest  photographs  of  himseir  that  had 
ever  been  taken  of  him  in  his  life. 

It  was  not  long  thereafter  lx?fore  the 
world  honored  him  at  the  great  banquet 
given  in  New  York  on  his  birthday  and 
then,  in  time,  the  news  was  flashed  over 
the  world's  wires  that  he  had  "gone 
home."  and  one  of  the  greatest  characters 
the  United  States  had  ever  produced  was 
laid  to  rest. 


I'  A  G  K       SIX 


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